In tiny Switzerland and Crawford counties in southeast Indiana, only 17 percent of adults have earned associate degrees (compared with 38 percent for the state overall), and a significant number lack even a high school diploma. Until recently, there were few places where area residents could go to advance their learning. But that’s changing, thanks to a coalition of organizations working to expand educational opportunity in the region: the EcO Attainment Network.
From his downtown office, Detroit Regional Chamber President Sandy Baruah has an expansive view of his city’s recent renaissance. Just five years after declaring bankruptcy, the Motor City has shifted gears and turned itself around. Now recognized as a Talent Hub, Detroit is working hard – and in an intensely collaborative way – to ensure its residents have the education and training they need to succeed in today’s economy.
Melvin Hines Jr. is an entrepreneur on a mission. As a teen in Albany, Georgia, Hines was disturbed by the high dropout rate among his high school classmates. That unease persisted when he went to college and saw scores of his fellow students hampered by economic and social inequities. It took a while, but Hines did something to address his concerns. Once he earned three degrees of his own, Hines and a partner founded a Texas-based educational software firm called Upswing. Today, Upswing’s online products are helping more than 80 colleges and universities boost students’ success by connecting them to peer tutoring, intensive advising, and other services.
Brian Hill’s social conscience was formed early, while he grew up in a large California family devoted to serving others. Hill’s father, a community college psychology instructor, also taught classes to inmates in Folsom State Prison, and he used that experience to foster empathy among young Brian and his five siblings. Decades later, Brian Hill has combined that empathetic urge with an entrepreneurial spirit to build Edovo, a thriving educational software company designed to give incarcerated men and women a leg up on a better future. In just a few years, Chicago-based Edovo has grown into an 85-employee firm that makes more than 25,000 tablet computers available in correctional facilities.
Entrepreneur Helen Adeosun is a scholar and a striver, but she’s spent plenty of time in the trenches. Along with degrees from Notre Dame and Harvard, Adeosun boasts a wealth of work experience—as a babysitter, a nanny, a teacher, a social worker, and a home-health aide. All of that learning served her well as the co-founder and CEO of CareAcademy, a Massachusetts-based firm that produces instructional modules that home caregivers use on mobile phones or tablet computers. Adeosun, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, launched CareAcademy in 2013. It now has more than 200 home-health companies as clients.
The Gonzalez brothers, (from left) Arnoldo, Homero, and Esteban, all have benefited from the student-centered approach adopted by Georgia Gwinnett College near Atlanta. The brothers are all GGC graduates, despite the barriers they faced as young immigrants from Mexico. The college took an intensely personal approach to ensure their success – standard operating procedure at Georgia Gwinnett.
Elkhart County, Indiana, has been in the economic spotlight before – a light that was especially harsh during the Great Recession, when unemployment spiked at 20 percent. Things are much better these days, and a local talent-development coalition is committed to maintaining that momentum. The coalition is decidedly cross-cultural, involving local industry, a growing Latino population and a progressive university affiliated with the Mennonite Church.
There’s a new spirit of unity among the colleges and universities that serve students in Mobile, Alabama. Where they used to compete to enroll these students, these once-siloed institutions are now collaborating to help them find clear pathways to success. The collaboration – fostered by Chandra Scott of the Mobile Area Education Foundation – is part of what sets Mobile apart as a Talent Hub.
These days, Morgan State University junior Deja Jones is focusing on her course work, but that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, money was so tight during her sophomore year that Jones was “literally fainting” because she couldn’t afford regular meals. That’s when Morgan State’s wraparound support system kicked in.
Amarillo College President Russell Lowery-Hart has made it his mission – and that of his college – to help low-income students succeed. The key ingredient in his formula? Love. “When you love the students you have rather than the students you wish you had, and when you build your college around their needs, you can actually ensure that they complete what they’ve started,” he says.